The Witcher 3 -- Blood and Wine: Tips to Get You Ready

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is sending Geralt of Rivia out with a bang. The game's final DLC, Blood and Wine, offers over 30 hours of content--that's practically a whole new game. With a new land mass littered with new monsters, armor, and mutagens, you're probably going to want to take a stern look at your last character save before you venture into Toussiant. Here's our guide for how to best prepare yourself for the trials of Blood and Wine.

Level Up

First, make sure you've reached a high enough character level. The very first mission in Blood and Wine recommends you be level 35 or above, so you probably want to be at least level 30 before you even step foot in Toussiant. Luckily, if you're just itching to dive into Blood and Wine, you will be able to start with a premade level 35 character. Just make sure you spend time reapplying your ability points.

Build Your Skills

If you decide to take the premade character route, you'll actually have a unique opportunity to reshuffle your ability points to better suit Toussiant. You'll face a couple new Cursed Ones and necrophage monsters, so be sure to boost your Igni sign. But the real kicker that Blood and Wine is packing? Vampires. And what do vampires hate? That's right, Urden. So beef that sign up as well. You may even run into some cloaking vampires, which means you should stock up on upgraded Moondust bombs. And don't forget to lather your sword with Vampire oil.

Mutant Powers

Before you go too nuts on skills, though, consider reserving some of those ability points for mutagens. Love 'em or hate 'em, Blood and Wine's packing a whole new mutagen skill tree that includes 12 new mutation abilities such as Piercing Cold, an upgrade to the Aard sign that allows you to freeze enemies where they stand. But be warned: these game-changers do require greater mutagens and lots of unused ability points.

Load Out

When it comes to armor, there are two paths you can take. First: if you've done it already, you can take your previously mastercrafted armor like Griffin or Feline and take it one step further. Blood and Wine brings Grandmaster armor, which allows for a whole new upgrade to your fit. If you're sick of your current fit and want start from scratch, however, you can work towards the new armor Manticore. But the real icing on the cake is that Blood and Wine brings unique perks to fully completed armor sets. For instance, if you complete the Manticore, you get a perk that adds a critical hit chance to thrown explosives.